1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wiper blade.
2. Description of Related Art
A wiper of a vehicle includes a wiper arm and a wiper blade. The wiper arm is swung by a drive force transmitted from a wiper motor upon energization thereof. The wiper blade is supported by a distal end portion of the wiper arm. For instance, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP2008-168796A teaches such a wiper blade, which includes a holder member (a rubber holder) that is made of a resin material and holds an elongated wiper strip to wiper a wiping surface (a surface of a windshield). The wiper strip is located on a lower side of the holder member in a top-to-bottom direction of the holder member. Furthermore, the holder member has an opening, which extends through the holder member in the top-to-bottom direction of the holder member. A connecting shaft is placed in the opening of the holder member to extend through the opening and thereby to span between side walls of the opening, which extend in the top-to-bottom direction and are opposed to each other. A distal end portion of the wiper arm is connected to the connecting shaft through a connecting member, which is received in the opening.
In the case of the wiper blade discussed above, if the holder member, which is made of the resin material, is formed through injection molding (runnerless injection molding) using a runnerless molding die, the following advantages can be achieved. Specifically, due to absence of a runner in the molding die, it is not required to fill the resin material in the runner, and thereby the yield can be improved. Also, a removing operation for removing the resin part, which corresponds to the runner, from the final product of the holder member is not required, so that the manufacturing process can be simplified. However, in this molding method, a nozzle is placed to directly contact a gate of a cavity of the molding die, and the molten resin material is filled into the cavity through the nozzle. Therefore, a gate trace is left on the molded product. Thus, in a case where a good exterior design of the wiper blade needs to be achieved, when the holder member of the wiper blade is formed through the injection molding using the runnerless molding die, the appearance of the holder member may possibly be deteriorated by the gate trace. Therefore, it has been demanded to improve this point.